But What Mark Millar REALLY Wants to Do is Direct

Sure, he’s a famous comic book writer, but what Scotsman Mark Millar (writer of “Wanted” and the upcoming “Kick-Ass”) really, really wants to do is direct big action movies. Okay, maybe not really wants to do, but he’s been offered the opportunity, and the writer of “Wanted” and the upcoming “War Heroes” has said yes. In fact, he said Yes a while ago, since according to Millar himself, his directorial debut will commence principal photography in March 2010. Under the thread title: “MILLAR TO DIRECT SUPERHERO MOVIE”, Mark Millar writes on his official forum:

Bet you didn’t see THAT coming, laddies and lassies!

But this is one of several big surprises planned for next year and you’ll hear a bit more about this in February when we start to release details. What is it? Who is it about? Well, that’s all a secret for now, but I learned a lot from Kick-Ass and love having the same creative freedom I have with comics when I work in cinema. I never want to be a studio bitch and go in there pitching for them to love me. The closest I came to this was a couple of calls regarding Superman, but pretty much none of my plans ever revealed as I didn’t like the idea of anyone nicking them.

Similarly, I don’t like the idea of asking for funding and justifying scenes with the money-men so I’m doing what Matthew Vaughn did with Kick-Ass and just making it outside the system with private investors. The financing is all secured and the movie stands or falls on how good I can make it, doing what Matthew did and just selling it once completed.

As you can imagine, I couldn’t be more excited. More as it happens, but this might just beat out War Heroes and American Jesus as my follow-ups to the Wanted and Kick-Ass movies. Have two other pictures about to go into development (and Wanted and Kick-Ass 2, of course), but I think you need to scare the Hell out of yourself every once in a while and something totally new like directing should do the trick.

This … doesn’t sound like a very good idea to me. For one, Millar is a comic book writer. I’m not sure he even knows how to draw. Granted, you don’t necessarily need to have an artistic eye to direct, but it sure helps, right? Especially for a comic book movie? Of course, that didn’t really help Frank Miller, whose own directorial debut “The Spirit” was an epic bomb, so maybe that’s not such a great point.

I hope Millar at least have some film school background. Hanging out on two movie sets don’t quite translate into “I can direct my own movies now!” in the real world, Mark. Or does it?